


Breaking Protocol

by fictionallemons



Category: Mission: Impossible (Movies)
Genre: Beer, Benji wears glasses, Benthan Week, First Kiss, Flirting, Fluff, Happy Ending, Kissing, M/M, Pandemics, Poker, Zoom - Freeform, quarantine fic, social distancing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-12
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:08:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25852624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fictionallemons/pseuds/fictionallemons
Summary: Ethan and Benji are riding out this pandemic in quarantine like everyone else. But everything changes when Ethan sees Benji without a shirt.
Relationships: Benji Dunn/Ethan Hunt
Comments: 11
Kudos: 95
Collections: Benthan Week 2020





	Breaking Protocol

**Author's Note:**

> Pure Benthan silliness and fluff. For Day 3 -- that one specific thing of Ethan seeing Benji shirtless. :)

April 2020

Ethan rises with his alarm, shuffles into his running shoes and does his usual five miles on the treadmill in his spare room. He makes an egg white omelet from the groceries he had a few days ago delivered and reads the morning paper on his tablet while the sun rises over the apartment building across the street. The entire world, apparently, is in quarantine. 

Ethan was sent home to await his next mission three weeks ago. So far, one hasn't arrived. Apparently the terrorists and arms dealers and megalomaniacal madmen of the world are in quarantine, too.

At first, it was nice to catch up on his reading. He finally finished _The Power Broker_ ; it seemed as if he'd been reading the Robert Moses biography since college. Then he'd gotten himself a Netflix account and watched the first episode of every single television show he'd heard people talk about and never had time to catch. When he'd texted Benji about that little project, Benji had texted back _I don't think you understand the concept of binge watching._

Weeks later, he's itchy for something to do. Brandt sent him every intelligence report from the past six months and he's memorized them already. He does pushups until his arms feel like jelly. He worries about Julia, who's on the front lines of all this, and wishes there was something he could do. But breaking into a research facility isn't going to make a vaccine come any sooner.

His only other outlet is the standing poker game he and Benji play every evening. Apparently Benji fancies himself something of a card sharp and was baffled to learn that Ethan never learned how to play.

"But poker—isn't that sort of important spy knowledge? What if you have to face down an evil villain over a game of seven card stud?"

"I'm an IMF agent, Benji, not James Bond," he'd said. "But if you want to teach me, I'm game."

They'd started with draw, then when Benji felt Ethan had a handle on the basics, they'd moved to stud. If Ethan is being extremely honest with himself he really doesn't care about poker. The nightly meet-up is more about getting to hang out with his friend. Over the last few years Benji has somehow become the best friend Ethan ever had. 

Ethan checks the time, figures it won't hurt to get on the Zoom call a little early. He runs his fingers through his hair, pours himself a beer. Benji logs on not long after, wearing a short sleeved white button down shirt. His beard's grown out a little during quarantine, and he wears his glasses all the time now. "No point in wearing my contacts right now, is there?" he'd said when Ethan had asked him about it.

"I like you in glasses," Ethan had responded. Then he'd cleared his throat and asked about the odds of getting a flush with three diamonds on the river.

"Good evening, Mr. Hunt," Benji says. "Ready to learn the finer points of bluffing?"

"Bluffing?" Now that's something Ethan has experience with. "Bring it on."

"The key to bluffing is to know your own tells. If you master your tells, you can manipulate others into thinking you're bluffing when you're not, and vice versa."

"So poker's really just a mind game? We should have started with this first thing."

"Let's play," Benji says with a smile. "But first, I need one of those." He nods to the corner of the computer window where Ethan's beer sits then gets up, leaving the camera on while he exits the room he's in—looks like his bedroom, from the slight corner of a pillow Ethan can see in the frame. After a moment he comes back with a bottle of his own. He twists off the cap, takes a swig, then Ethan watches as if in slow motion the bottle slips from Benji's grasp and splashes brown ale all over his white shirt.

"Shit!" Benji exclaims. "That's cold!"

"Did it get on your computer?" Ethan asks, rather unhelpfully. Not for the first time he wishes they were doing this in person instead over stupid video conferencing. Benji's apartment is less than half a mile from Ethan's. If they hadn't been ordered to stay home until further notice, he could run to Benji's in three minutes flat.

"No, just me," Benji says ruefully. "Hang on." 

Ethan watches Benji's nimble fingers fly to the buttons on his shirt and start undoing them. Benji peels off the sodden shirt and holds it away from himself.

"Ugh. I smell like hops. You mind if I take a quick rinse?"

Ethan's gaze is on Benji's chest. His lean, chiseled chest. Benji has sparse body hair the same color as his beard, and flat, pink nipples. Ethan vaguely registers that he must have seen Benji without a shirt on before—he _must_ —but he can't quite remember Benji's chest ever striking him quite like this.

"Ethan? Hello? I'm going to hop in the shower, no pun intended."

"Shower. Right. Okay."

"Be right back." Benji leaves the Zoom window open, so Ethan can see him getting up and tossing the wet shirt into a laundry hamper in the corner of his room. And then—oh God—Ethan can see as Benji undoes the buttons on his jeans and starts sliding them down over his slim hips. Ethan catches a flash of white underneath—boxers? Briefs? He can't really tell, and then Benji's gone around the corner, presumably to the bathroom.

To take a shower.

Naked.

Ethan feels hot and cold all at once. He does his best to not imagine Benji removing every single article of clothing he's wearing. He does not think about Benji stepping under a hot spray of water and soaping up his strong, wiry body. He absolutely does not contemplate what it would feel like to run his hands up Benji's sides, or over his pecs, to run them lower, lower, sweeping across his—

With a strangled cry, Ethan jumps to his feet, then closes his computer. He grabs his house key and a bandana and ties it around his face in a makeshift mask.

Three minutes later he's knocking on Benji's apartment door. It seems to take ages for Benji to answer, wearing soft gray pajama bottoms and a plain white t-shirt.

"Ethan, what the bloody hell? I just got out of the shower like thirty seconds ago. How are you here?"

Ethan's breathing pretty hard, so he takes a second to answer. "Um. I'm sorry. I know I'm breaking quarantine I just, I haven't been anywhere in weeks so the chances of me having this thing are really low, so I figured, you know, acceptable risk and all."

Benji looks incredibly confused, but ushers Ethan in, anyway. "You want me to wear a mask?" he asks, nodding at Ethan's bandana.

Ethan had forgotten he was wearing it, and pulls it down, stuffing it into the pocket of his jeans. "No, no, that's not necessary. I know you haven't been anywhere either."

"I'm not worried about catching coronavirus from you, if that's what you mean," Benji says dryly. "Is there a mission? Is that why the rush?"

"No mission, Benji. I just had to see you. In person. I'm no good at these things no matter the circumstances, but I knew it would be worse if I tried to do it over a video call."

"Do what? What things?" Benji's brow creases, shifting his glasses on his face.

Ethan feels his breathing even out. "I really do like you in glasses."

Benji's cheeks go a little pink. "Oh. Thank you."

"And I like you out of them, too. I like you in sweats, and I apparently really like it when you take off your shirt. Benji, you're my best friend, and I like you. Full stop."

"You ran all the way over here, breaking quarantine during a global pandemic, to tell me you like me?"

Ethan grimaces. "Bad timing, I know."

"Have you ever once followed protocol, Ethan Hunt?"

Ethan pretends to think about it. "I'm sure I have, once or twice."

"Well, since you've already broken quarantine by coming all the way over here, I suppose it wouldn't do much more damage to get closer than six feet, would it?"

Ethan doesn't have to be told twice. He walks right up to Benji, says throatily, "No, I don't think that's a problem at all."

"And since we're both low risk, maybe kissing would be permissible as well." Benji's tone is deceptively mild.

Ethan brushes his lips slowly over Benji's. "No reason not to, really."

"And once we've kissed, I mean, there's no point in not…touching each other. I mean, we've already exposed ourselves to each other's germs."

Ethan's hands find themselves on Benji's waist, and he can feel Benji's wrap around his shoulders. He goes in for another kiss, a proper one that includes tongue and spit and as many germs as possible.

When they come up for air, Ethan's breathing heavily again, Benji's glasses are askew, and both of their cheeks look sunburn red.

"Well, Mr. Hunt, I guess I called your bluff, then."

"What are you talking about?"

"The shirt. I might have orchestrated that, just a little bit, to gauge your reaction."

"You did not." Ethan laughs, delighted.

"I did. I had gotten the distinct feeling that you were playing poker with about five percent of your brain and checking me out with the other ninety five percent. I had to do an experiment."

"It worked. You called my bluff."

"And you broke protocol."

And they both lived happily ever after.


End file.
